Ukrainian building materials group Kovalska is readying itself for a final legal battle against a decision by the country’s mergers regulator to allow CRH buy a business called Dyckerhoff, owner of two cement plants there. Kovalska maintains that the deal, done last year, leaves CRH as one half of a duopoly in the market for a material Ukraine desperately needs.
The war-torn country faces a €506 billion bill to rebuild, estimates suggest. The EU, its member states and other international donors are expected to help bankroll this. Ukraine will need up to 20 million tonnes of cement a-year. However, even at full pre-war capacity it could only produce 11 million tonnes annually.
Kovalska will go to the supreme court Kyiv in September in a last-ditch effort to overturn last year’s decision by the anti-monopolies committee of Ukraine (AMCU) to allow the Irish giant buy Dyckerhoff for a reported €100 million. Barry O’Halloran has the details.
For Irish income tax receipts, the €3.7 billion question is how long Big Tech’s growth can continue.
In what has been a troubling echo of the period immediately after the Covid-19 pandemic, when Big Tech companies froze hiring and shed jobs left and right, household names such as Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have announced more global cuts over the past year, with some Irish roles firmly in the firing line, writes Ian Curran.
Somewhere along the way and most likely on the back of a global shift towards more market-orientated policies, the State stopped building out its economy and adopted - like the UK - a more laissez-faire approach to state services and infrastructure.
In keys areas like energy, water and housing, it effectively downed tools. We’re now reaping the consequences of this ideological shift, writes Eoin Burke-Kennedy in his weekly column.
Why is Ireland not considered a truly rich country?
Irish fitness competition brand Tryka has signed a “game-changing” multiyear, title sponsorship with Life Style Sports in advance of its inaugural national event at the RDS in October.
The fitness racing brand, which was created by Freshly Chopped founder Brian Lee, has been modelled as a more accessible version of German company Hyrox’s popular indoor fitness competition. Hugh Dooley reports.
You’re standing on stage at an award ceremony and the event host hands you a microphone and says: “Five years ago, your company wasn’t making money and nobody knew who you were. Last month, you sold the business for millions to a large firm and everyone knows your brand. What one thing made the difference to investors and to the staff?”
The answer might surprise you: it’s a one-page strategy or visualisation, writes Margaret E Ward.
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